


Meds: Cassidy Casablancas, This Is (Not) Your Life

by queenofhell_proserpina



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Gen, Homophobia, Murder, Past Rape/Non-con, Sibling Incest, Suicide, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 02:38:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4504488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofhell_proserpina/pseuds/queenofhell_proserpina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How it matter to us, how it mattered to me, and the consequences.</p>
<p>An AU/not an AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meds: Cassidy Casablancas, This Is (Not) Your Life

Cassidy’s had this plan all summer. It’s a good plan, he thinks. Big and elaborate and exceptional, like a villain in a superhero comic. Like all the things Beaver isn’t.

He’s going to blow up a bus. He has everything worked out—cover-up, alibi, bomb design and deployment. The look he’ll have on his face when the bus goes over the cliff, what he’ll say when someone asks him about it. Everything.

When he gets to the stadium, Mr. Goodman stands right in front of him, smiling big and bland and telling them that he recognizes some of them from Little League. When Cassidy makes some crack about the Sharks’ crappy pitching, Goodman looks at him for an extra second. His eyes twinkle and he grins a big, wide grin, like he’s so happy to see him again after all these years, and Cassidy feels his stomach tighten like a fist even as he keeps a smile on his face.

After Goodman’s little speech they mingle and eat crappy food and every time Cassidy sees Peter or Marcos out of the corner of his eye, he moves closer to Goodman’s daughter—Gina or something. They stay away, but they stare at him and talk quietly to each other, murmuring. He’s pretty sure they wont make a scene here—if they were going to, they already would have, but still. Better, safer to just stay away.

As expected, Dick makes a big deal about getting them a limo, and Cassidy’s glad his brother is so fucking predictable. Cassidy likes plans, patterns, predictability. Most people, especially in Neptune, never really see anything; they’re content to just watch the surface and never look for the ripples underneath. Cassidy, though, he sees the ripples, notices the patterns people follow and adjusts his surface accordingly, to make sure that what other people see is what he wants them to see.

Peter wins the raffle, and when he accepts his prize bag from Goodman he touches it with just the tips of his fingers, like its infected, and refuses to shake Goodman’s hand. Goodman’s smile falters, a little, but he doesn’t notice the ripples, the significance of the refusal, and neither does anyone else. 

Cassidy’s going to make sure that they never will.

**1A. Out on a limb in the carnival of me**

In the limo, he holds his cell phone in his hand and waits until it’s time. He expected to be more nervous than he is, but he guesses that once you’ve gone over something in your head a thousand times, even the performance is just another dress rehearsal. No pressure, no excitement. Just a mild sense of relief that finally it’ll be over and done with.

Dick’s flirting with Gina—Gia?—and Duncan’s looking bored and no one’s thinking about the kids behind them on the bus. Cassidy does a headcount in his head—the driver, Miss Dumas, Cervando, Meg, Veronica Mars, that chick Dick used to fuck. Peter and Marcos. One, maybe two others, he’s not sure. He wonders how many people on that bus that he’ll miss—Meg, maybe; he hadn’t planned on her being on it. Veronica, depending on the day of the week.

When they turn the corner and come to the cliff, he quietly shuts his cell phone off and put it in his pocket. No one notices.

**1B. Raising the temperature one hundred degrees**

These are the things he doesn’t let himself think:

_Am I going to get caught?_  
_What would Mom say if she knew?_  
_How many people are on that bus?_  
_They’re all going to die, and it’s because of me._

This is what he does:

Presses the ‘call’ button on his cell, and counts his luck that Veronica Mars isn’t here and everyone else is too self-involved to notice.

**2A. The call to arms was never true**

The next day Peter and Marcos corner him again. They talk about Mr. Goodman and how he’s running for office, how he can’t get away with this. Can’t be some big public figure, someone people look up to, not after what he did to them.

Cassidy looks at them, their earnest faces and bright eyes, and thinks, _You could be dead today, and I wouldn’t have to deal with this_. The thought doesn’t do anything to him except bring a mild sense of annoyance at them, anger at himself for being so fucking weak. Only faintly, behind everything else, relief.

“He didn’t do anything to me,” Cassidy says, and walks away. When Dick asks what those two fags want with him, he smiles crookedly and says, “I dunno, man. Circle jerk?”

Eventually he figures out that just leaving them to stew is a pretty fucking stupid plan. He has to give them something, some reason not to bring them into it. It's going to happen, he knows—he thought for a while about other plans, just taking them out individually, but the whole point was to make it so they didn’t look like targets. Besides, he’s pretty sure his problem, whatever made him turn off his cell phone back there, was the collateral damage, and that’s always a risk with bombs. So it's gonna happen—they’re going to out Goodman, parade their little sob story to the world and probably make a mint off the civil suit. There’ll be police investigations and media attention, and all Cassidy can do now is try to keep his name out of it.

He tries to decide which way to play it, ‘I’ll crush your life’ 09er or ‘I’m a victim, just like you, don’t bring this into my life because maybe I’ll kill myself’. Eventually he settles on a mixture of both. He grabs Marco during lunch, says, “Look, you can’t do this to me. Okay? Do whatever the hell you want to do, but I don’t want to be a part of this. This will ruin my fucking life.”

Marcos looks guilty, and Cassidy manages not to smile. He knew Marcos was the weak one—it was always Peter who was pushing, telling him he had to testify, had to do this. Cassidy pushes a little harder. “Look, if you try to say that he did anything to me, I’ll lie. I’ll say that he was the best fucking coach in the world and he never did a goddam thing wrong, and that you two told me you wanted to screw Goodman over and make some money for college. That’s why you guys want me, remember? Because I’m such a credible fucking witness.”

“Cassidy—”

“No. Tell Peter to keep my name out of it. Tell him—tell him if he doesn’t…” Cassidy doesn’t finish his sentence, but Marcos seems to get the jist.

Marcos nods. “Okay. I’ll—I’ll see what I can do.”

“Good.” Cassidy knows that it won’t stop them, but maybe it’ll slow them down for a while. Make them look around for some other loser willing to run his mouth off and let the whole word in on his private business. He’s pretty sure Peter will keep pushing him, or at least trying to, but at least he’s got Marcos off his back for now.

He can deal with Peter later.

**2B. Time to imbibe, here’s to you**

The day after the bus crash, hell breaks loose at school. Crying students in the halls, Clemmons on the intercom talking about the school counselor and mandatory attendance at the assembly on grief management. Teachers pausing over names on the attendance roster and then going onto the next name and the next name after that.

Over the next week, it’s even more chaotic. News crews, reports on the crash, and already a red herring. He hadn’t even known about the driver’s issues—it’s just a stroke of blind luck. Of course, they haven’t found the bomb yet; plenty of time for him to just sit back and observe, see what else they come up with.

Saturday, Logan throws a party. “Life’s Short”, just a bunch of rich kids drinking and screwing to remind themselves they’re not dead. Dick doesn’t seem to miss that girl he was screwing—he’s still going after Goodman’s daughter. She has long, thin arms and wide eyes, like a baby gazelle, and Cassidy wonders if—no. He doesn’t wonder anything. Not his problem.

Dick gets shot down, at least for the moment, and he slumps on the couch next to Cassidy, scowling. “What the hell, dude. Aren’t near-death experiences supposed to, like, make you want to fuck?”

“Yeah. Increase the species. Prove you’re still alive.”

“Get some of that blooood pumping.” Dick slides his hand to the inside of Cassidy’s thigh, drawing out the word ‘blood’ as though he’s taffy pulling with his tongue.

“Uh-huh.” Cassidy looks around the room, but everyone’s too stoned/sick/drunk/fucked-out to notice anything going on. Not that anyone notices, anyway. They’re used to Dick and Beav, used to Dick crawling all over Cassidy when he’s drunk and can’t get laid, and nothing ever comes of it so no one’s interested anymore.

Dick is sucking on his ear when the PCHers show up, and when some biker grimaces in disgust he just laughs and slides his hand further up Cassidy’s thigh. Cassidy breaks away and goes off to make a phone call—seeing Weevil there gives him an idea.

When the cops break up the party, it’s a welcome relief. There are still too many things to take care of, too many threads to wrap around his fingers and pull tight. He drops Dick at home, wasted off his ass, and manages to get to the Roadhog just in time to see Weevil and his biker buddies pummeling Curly. Too many variables, though—he didn’t think Weevil would let Curly talk. People are predictable, but not always as predictable as he thinks they are. He flashes his lights and the bikers scuttle like cockroaches.

It’s easier than he thought it would be to run Curly over. He thought he’d have a harder time with it, being this close, touching Curly’s body with his own two hands. It’s even easier than the bus, though. Maybe once you kill somebody, it just gets easier and easier until eventually, its nothing at all.

He writes Veronica Mars' name on Curly’s palm. On the one hand, he knows it stupid to involve Veronica in this—she’s too smart, sees too much. There’s too big a chance that she’ll jump to the right conclusions. But then again, he’s already convinced her that he’s sweet little Beaver. He’s already made what happened at Shelley’s party never happen. And it’ll draw her towards the wrong conclusions—he saw the picture of Aaron on Curly’s wall, and he knows its something Veronica won’t miss. She’s just self-involved enough to think that this is all about her.

It isn’t though. For the first time ever, this is all about Cassidy, even if nobody knows it.

**3A. You’re always ahead of the rest**

When Cassidy came up with it, really, he just thought that at least it was something he could do. His dad would never know about anything else, never know or care how smart and determined Cassidy was, but at least he’d know Cassidy was the one who cared enough to get that lying slut Kendall out of their lives. Fucking around right in their house, on their couch, god fucking knows where else.

But of course he fucks it up, like he fucks everything up. Gets Veronica Mars involved, gets his dad ratted out to the authorities. Gets no divorce and Kendall still lounging around their house, fucking Logan and smarting off to the maids. Gets proof that his dad doesn’t give a shit about him, never did and never will.

But then again, he gets proof that his dad is way fucking stupider than he’d thought before. The kind of scam Big Dick was running, its not sustainable in any sense of the word, and if the SEC moved on him that fast they had to have been on his tail anyway. A real scam, the kind that makes money you don’t have to hide in secret island accounts, it can’t look like a real scam. You need a red herring, a scapegoat, something to blame everything on that will let you come off clean and on top.

Cassidy could do better in his sleep.

**3B. While I drag behind**

After the bus crash, Cassidy learned something: he can do whatever the hell he wants, and manage to get away with it. Everyone underestimates him, everyone just sees weak little Beaver, and that’s good. That gives him power. If everyone’s looking over his shoulder at bigger, stronger guy, they’re not paying attention to what he’s doing.

That’s how he finds out about the insurance policy on him and Dick. That’s how he finds out about what his dad is doing—fuck, Dad even takes him along to a couple of sites he’s thinking of buying. Total dumps, but is naïve little Beaver gonna notice, gonna understand what’s going on? Of course not.

Right.

That’s the thing that bothers him. Its not that he’s second best to Dick, its that his dad is so blatant about it. He could just ignore Cassidy, but instead its these little comments, little digs, about his manhood, about how Cassidy’s not good enough, not smart enough, not special enough.

His dad was stupid enough that his loser son and a teenage detective managed to figure him out. Cassidy’s smart enough that he managed to kill eight people, blow up a bus, and get away with it all.

It’s too bad. Dad could have used someone like Cassidy to figure things out for him. He could do better in his sleep.

**4A. Bite the hand that feeds**

Peter hasn’t found anyone else willing to admit what Goodman did to them, and he still wants to get to Goodman before the incorporation vote. Cassidy tries to same act he used on Marcos, but Peter’s smarter than that, cuts through his bullshit. “You’re not that good a liar, Cassidy. They’ll ask you if he ever touched you, if he ever made you suck his dick, if he—” Cassidy clenches his teeth, and Peter looks at him, sympathetic. Pitying. “Look at you. You can’t even hear the fucking words. They’ll see through you in a minute, so you might as well just admit it and help us get that fucker put away.”

It's not the same thing, Cassidy thinks. He doesn’t have to lie to Peter.

“You don’t even need me,” Cassidy hisses. “Veronica’s dad is sheriff again, and he’s a good guy. He’ll believe you.” He can’t stay, can’t stay here and get lectured for not being a good little victim, so he leaves.

Even if Sheriff Mars does believe them, though, he’s not sure what’ll happen. Maybe it’s just this thing that he’s built up in his head, but Goodman’s always seemed so powerful. Beloved small town businessman, coach to the Sharks, and now, county supervisor. Even if the sheriff’s office treats it like a real case, rather than just some boys with a grudge, that’s not how the media will see it. Two queer loser kids from outside of the incorporated areas, and even though they seem to think Cassidy’s money and 09er status will fix it, they don’t get that to the other 09ers he’s the weak kid. Sixteen and a virgin, not brain-dead from sex and beer like Dick, so maybe he’s gay or maybe he’s just a pussy. Goodman always played nice to their face, but Cassidy knows he’d be the first to call them deranged little fags who’re just bitter that they sucked at baseball.

Goodman’s powerful. He’s a politician; he knows how to twist words and reality—because appearance is reality in Neptune. But Cassidy thinks about what he’d planned to do with the bus—thinks about how in some ways, his appearance of weakness is power—and thinks maybe he can do something.

Cassidy’s mom didn’t even come down to see them, just signed off on the papers from San Francisco, so Cassidy’s got his trust fund now. He’s got money, and he’s got information—and that means he has power. And he can take some power away from Goodman.

He only tells Peter and Marcos the bare bones of his plan, but they can see how much it’ll fuck Goodman over. They agree to give him time enough to do what he needs to do—Marcos mutters something about needing time to prepare his parents to hear the truth anyway and Peter gives him an annoyed look, rolls his eyes as if he’s heard that a thousand times before; Cassidy makes a mental note to check that out later, see if its something he can use—and Peter even suggests someone to design the website.

Mac is good—smart, efficient, and talented. And cute. When she’s going over logo designs with him, she keeps looking at him out of the corner of her eye and smiling. He thinks about what it would be like to ask her out, this normal girl, this girl who doesn’t look at him like he’s just Dick’s little brother.

When he pays her, he hands over an extra forty. As she counts, her mouth tilts up at the corner, and she looks up at him through her eyelashes. “Oooh, a bonus? You must have really needed an A on this assignment.”

“No,” he says. “It's so you can take me to dinner.”

Her face breaks out in a grin, and she rocks back on her heels, delighted. “Oh, yeah? And where will I be taking you?”

“How do you feel about pizza?”

**4B. Tap the vein that bleeds**

Cassidy’s mom comes and goes, and its what he should have expected, really. Stupid to think otherwise, to hope that she’d take him out of fucking Neptune and let him see the world with her. After the bus crash, he just wants to get out of here—he’s sick of the media attention, sick of hearing about the dead students. Europe would be a nice change.

At least he has his trust fund now, though.

He’d been hoping that with his father gone and no money at hand, Kendall would be easier to control—or that she’d at least cut her losses and run. Go find Dad, or else file for divorce in his absence and find some new rich sucker to sponge off of.

She hasn’t, though. He’d given it a few weeks to sink in, to realize that her cash flow had dried up, but he’d underestimated her determination—or her commitment to being a trouble-making asshole. He’s started noticing things missing—first some expensive knickknacks, things not easily missed; and now his father’s watch. She’s still fucking Logan—going to his hotel in broad daylight, not even bothering to cover it up. Humiliating his family.

He’s been thinking about real estate since Goodman started talking about incorporation—no, before that, since he’d found out about his father’s business practices and realized that he could do it so much better, so much smarter. A scam that doesn’t look like a scam—a scam that _isn’t_ a scam, really, unless you’re the one in the background, pulling the strings. Which is exactly what Cassidy plans to be doing.

This was what Peter and Marcos just didn’t get—if you’re smart, you don’t go out in front of the world and proclaim yourself a victim. You stay quiet, and bide your time, and collect information until you have enough rope to let your victim hang himself. If someone fucks you over, don’t admit it to anyone. Just fuck them back, and harder.

He’s never going to out Goodman. He knows that about himself, and after the bus crash he knows he’ll do anything to stop Goodman from being outed. He’s not going to let his life be ruined because of something that happened when he was eleven fucking years old, something that he didn’t even do, that was done to him. But he can turn it to his advantage—make some money and fuck Goodman over in the process. Peter and Marcos and six other people died because of what Goodman did, and Cassidy doesn’t regret that. He doesn’t. But he can do this for them, for the people he killed. Fuck Goodman over, make him scared. Make him so scared that he never does it again.

Phoenix, rising from the ashes. Turning the bad into good.

Kendall will make a good front man--woman, whatever. He’d been trying to figure out how he could work the real estate thing, how he could keep Kendall in line, and this works—two birds with one stone.

Predictably, she jumps at it, and predictably, she’s a bitch about it. The difference between her and everyone else, though, is he can bitch right back. It's funny—out of everyone in his life, Kendall is the one person he’s the most honest with, the most himself, and even then it's only about eighty percent.

He can’t be honest with Mac, and that sucks. She’s so nice, and so smart—he thinks she would appreciate it, the brilliance of his plan, if he could tell her about it. He can’t, though. She’d ask too many questions, see too many patterns, figure things out. He doesn’t want anyone to figure out what Goodman did to him, but especially not her. They haven’t spent that much time together yet, but she laughs at his jokes and smiles at him and looks at him like she really sees him.

She doesn’t, of course. If she really saw him, she’d be disgusted. She’d never look at him again. But he thinks she sees him the way he wants to be seen, and that’s good enough. Better, even.

**5A. Find a brand new way of seeing**

It turns out, Mac does like pizza. But she’s a vegan, and apparently it’s impossible to find a decent cheeseless pizza in Neptune. Which is great, actually—it gives their dates a theme: the Great Pizza Quest of ’06. He goes online and makes a list of pizzerias within a forty-mile radius, and highlights the ones that look promising, the little mom-and-pop places and the places that use organic ingredients. When he gives her the list she smiles, biting her lip at one corner, shy and happy and looking at him with wide eyes and he’s in, he’s so in.

So things are going great with them. Mac, she just gets him, and when he looks at her he doesn’t even feel like a failure. If she knew about his plan for the bus, she’d be so glad that he didn’t do it; she cares about animals and globalization and wants to stop the war, wants to stop people from dying.

But she’s smart, too—clever, and ruthless in some ways. She told him about the Purity Test, so when she comes up with the perfect plan to screw Dick over, it’s not so much a surprise as it is a confirmation of how completely perfect they are for each other. He gets punched, yeah, but it’s worth it. Mac coos over him, drives him home since his eye is swelling shut and promises to pick him up tomorrow morning.

Dick avoids him for a few days, which isn’t difficult in their huge, empty house. He’d never hit Cassidy before, and Cassidy wants to be pissed about it, but he knows he kind of deserved it. He also knows Dick will be feeling guilty as fuck about it, which makes it easier to just sit back and smirk and wait for Dick to come to him.

Finally Dick tracks him down and says, “Corona and Grand Theft Auto at Duncan and Logan‘s place; you in?”

Cassidy looks up at him, squinting through his hair. It’s growing too long, getting into his eyes; he’s thinking about asking Mac to cut it for him. “Yeah, okay,” he says. “I’m in.”

They hang out with Duncan and Logan, and Dick gets teased about his affinity for transvestites, but he just cuffs Cassidy on the head and grins, “Yeah, I don’t usually like my chicks with that many accessories, but what can I say? The ladies love Dick—even the ones _with_ dick.”

Veronica comes over to cuddle with Duncan and snark at Logan. When she notices Cassidy there, she smiles and asks him how things are going with Mac. Cassidy looks over at Dick, waiting to see if he’ll say anything, but he just takes another swig of his beer and keeps on playing the game.

Cassidy looks at Veronica and smiles. “Things are going good, yeah.”

**5B. Your eyes forever glued to mine**

Things with Mac…they’ve been going so good, so completely perfect. It wasn’t something he’d ever thought he’d have—in his circle, girlfriends are just something you have so you can get laid on a regular basis. Mac is different. She’s so smart, and so cool—they can just hang out, watch bad teen dramas and mock, hold hands and walk around the carnival and do nothing at all. It doesn’t all have to be about sex.

And of course, Dick has to ruin it. Twist it, make it dirty and fucked up, make it everything he doesn’t want connected with Mac. He just fucking hates the fact that Cassidy doesn’t need him, that he has his own life, that he isn’t always following Dick around like a lost puppy.

After Dick walks off, Mac follows him. She corners him against a booth and calmly, deliberately takes his hand in hers. Squeezes it tight. “Your brother’s a dick.”

He snorts a laugh. “If nicknames are descriptive, what does that make me?”

She squeezes his hand harder, a reprimand this time. “Shut up. You didn’t choose that name, he did. And he doesn’t get to choose who you are.” She looks down at their shoes. “Look, that stuff he said—”

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

She bites her lip. It’s adorable. “Fair enough. But if you don’t want to talk about it, do you want to do something about it?”

He was right—Mac is brilliant. Hearing her plan for Dick, he wishes he could tell her everything. Everything he’s done, everything he’s doing. He wishes that he could let her know how smart he is; that he can make plans too. Wishes he could have had her help.

Dick comes out of the car spitting and wiping his lips, and he heads right for Cassidy. Typical Dick, going for something physical instead of using his brain. “Hit me and you’ll suffer worse,” Cassidy says, and he wonders if it’s true. If he could actually do something to Dick, to his own brother.

He’s pretty sure he could.

After that, he takes Mac out for pizza. She orders hers cheeseless and when he teases her, says, “Sure, laugh it up while you’re digesting your animal carcass. At least I don’t have some poor pig’s death on my conscience, pepperoni boy.”

When he goes home, Dick is waiting for him on his bed, smoking up and looking glazed—not that it’s a big difference from his usual look.

“Don’t smoke in my room, Dick, it makes the curtains smell,” Cassidy says. He sits down on the edge of the bed and slips off his shoes, looks at Dick out of the corner of his eye. Dick had been scared at the carnival, scared of him. Cassidy’d kind of figured Dick would give him a wide berth for a few days, get drunk and high enough that he’d even forget anything had even happened. But instead he’s here, in Cassidy’s room, waiting for him.

“Don’t…” Dick stares at the bedspread. “Don’t bring her up again, okay? Just…don’t. I remember. You don’t have to.”

“I won’t,” Cassidy says softly. “I’ll never mention it again. If you don’t make me.”

Dick lets out a breath, and then smiles, as if they’d never said anything at all. “So. Get your ass over here and help me finish this. I don’t want to be some sad-ass junkie, man, so you can’t let me smoke up alone.”

“Isn’t that drinking alone?” Cassidy says, but he moves over until he’s sitting next to Dick, against the headboard. Dick hands him the joint and puts his arm around him, ruffles his hair and nuzzles him behind the ear.

“What do you see in Ghost World, anyway?” he says into Cassidy’s neck.

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t,” Dick says, but he keeps his arm around Cassidy, keeps him close. He knows about Sally, knows what Cassidy is capable of, and he doesn’t care. He still loves him.

Cassidy knows that Mac would care, if she knew. So he just has to make sure that never happens.

**6A. Forget your running, I will find you**

Veronica Mars corners him at lunch one day, draws him away from Mac to talk to him in a quiet, intent voice. “You know those robberies that have been happening lately?”

“Yeah.” He watches the news, and Mac’s been working overtime on the Pirate S.H.I.P website, changing passwords and putting up better security protocols.

“I’ve been investigating them for a client. Some of the gay kids are getting blackmailed, so I’ve been checking out a Neptune High gay posting board, looking for leads.”

“Yeah?” He looks at her, not even bothering to conceal his boredom. “And this has what to do with me? Mac’s the one who designed that thing, if you have any questions about it you should ask her. I know she’s the one who printed out the postings for you.”

Veronica says, slowly, “Peter Ferrara posted something about ‘the outing of all outings’. Do you know anything about that?”

The back of his neck goes cold, hairs standing up in goosebumps. “No. I don’t.”

He starts to walk away, back to Mac, and Veronica calls after him, “I already talked to Peter.” Cassidy stops short, trying to breathe, not looking at Veronica or anything else. “He told me about the case against Mr. Goodman.”

Cassidy turns around, shrugs nonchalantly. “Yeah? I don’t know anything about that.”

“I think you do.” She puts her hand on his arm and he brushes it off, roughly. He feels like he’s about to puke on her shoes, and he doesn’t need anyone touching him right now. “Look, its okay, Cassidy. I know…I know what its like.”

“You don’t know anything, Veronica. Just leave it alone.”

“If he molested you---” She stops short, lowers her voice. “You have to come forward, Cassidy. You have to tell someone. He can’t get away with this.”

“He didn’t do shit to me, Veronica, except teach me how to hit a ball. Why the fuck is this your business, anyway?”

“Peter and Marcus aren’t 09ers. You know how this town works—if its rich versus poor, the poor always lose. If you testify, they can get him. Without you…”

“That’s not my problem,” he says.

“If he did anything—if you even saw anything—“

“Seriously, Veronica—stay out of it.” He looks over his shoulder at Mac. She’s staring at him, worried. She doesn’t know anything about this yet.

She never will.

He turns back to Veronica. “You know, I seem to recall you running around last year accusing 09er guys of raping you, and I don’t see you pressing charges.” He knows—it's cruel to bring it up, but at least it’ll get her the fuck away from him, he hopes. Deflect attention, it's rule number one to controlling the situation. And he needs, _needs_ to keep this under control.

She swallows visibly, her mouth tight. “I wasn’t—I wasn’t raped.”

He exhales, slowly slowly. “What a coincidence,” he says. “Neither was I.”

He turns his back on her, walks back to Mac and sits down. Holds her hand loosely in his. “What was that about?” Mac asks.

He shrugs.

Later he tracks Peter down, throws him against a wall in the boy’s bathroom. “If you fucking tell anyone, anyone else, I will kill you,” he says. Peter doesn’t look impressed, just shoves him back.

“Look, I didn’t tell her, okay? I just told her about the case, that he was our Little League coach. She’s Veronica Mars, she probably noticed your name on the team picture and figured it out on her own.” Cassidy knows he doesn’t look convinced, and Peter sighs. “Look, I haven’t told anyone, okay? I talked to Marcos about it and…and he thinks that maybe I was being a jackass to try and force you out of the closet.”

Cassidy snorts. “There’s a difference between being gay and being…”

“Yeah, and there’s also a difference between not admitting you were molested and not being molested. Not saying the words doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, Cassidy.”

Except Peter’s wrong. Not admitting it is the same as it never having happened, because this is Neptune. Appearance is reality.

**6B. Cause I can see in the dark**

He maybe chose the wrong week to hook Dick up with a transvestite—the ragging would have been bad enough as it was, but with Kylie Kuzzio coming out of the closet and gay 09ers apparently being blackmailed, its worse. Not too bad—this is Dick, after all, and everything just rolls off of his back, but the overflow always spills out onto Cassidy.

After the Sally thing, though, it’s more subtle. Some kid makes a crack about Dick and Beaver’s nicknames being extremely prescient given the way they act at parties, and although Cassidy knows Dick doesn’t know what ‘prescient’ means, he gets the implication. He doesn’t make a thing of it, though, just grabs Cassidy from behind and pretends to pump away while Cassidy pretends to laugh and girls squeal in the background.

After school, they drive through Burger King. When they reach the window, Dick says out of the blue, ”That guy had a point, you know. If we were fucking, you’d totally be the bottom.” The girl at the window goes to school with them, looks totally shocked and then increasingly intrigued. Cassidy snorts and gestures for Dick to pay the girl already. She looks disappointed when they drive off without another word.

Cassidy doesn’t make a thing of it either, because after all, this is Neptune, where appearance is reality and something’s only true if you acknowledge it. When Dick puts on a movie that night, turns off the lights and puts an arm around Cassidy, Cassidy pretends nothing’s happening, because that’s the game they play: _Do you want it? Maybe I want it, or maybe I’m just faking it to fuck with you, but if you don’t make a move you’ll never know_. It’s weirdly safe, in a way, because both of them know it’ll never happen. 

Of course, since Madison dumped Dick he hasn’t exactly been getting a lot of play, so who fucking knows.

Dick’s hand is warm on the back of Cassidy’s neck, fingernails scraping gently beneath his hairline, and Cassidy grits his teeth. Dick chuckles, leans in and breathes into Cassidy’s ear, “You know, it’s okay if you’re gay, little brother. It's not like it’d be a surprise. Is that what you’ve been hiding all this time? Why you’ve been so twitchy all year—getting blackmailed, getting—”

Cassidy laughs, a short, sharp bark. If only Dick knew—he’s the one doing the blackmailing, not the other way around. Dick sucks in a breath, annoyed, and then breathes out, warm on Cassidy’s face. “You know, Beav, if we were fucking,” he says, head dipping close enough to Cassidy’s ear that he can feel the movement of his lips. “If we were fucking—”

Suddenly it doesn’t feel so safe, and Cassidy can feel himself tense all over, feel himself vibrate like he’s about to—about to—

He’s not really sure what happens: one minute Dick is licking his ear, the next Cassidy’s leaning over, clutching his stomach, and Dick’s hand is on the back of his neck, firm and brotherly. “Whoa, whoa,” he hears Dick say from what feels like far away. “You okay, Beav? You looked like you were about to ralph or something.”

“I’m okay,” Cassidy breathes. “I’m okay.”

“Okay,” Dick says, not sounding entirely sure. “Cool.” He helps Cassidy sit up and settles him into the crook of his arm, so that he’s resting against Dick’s body. He doesn’t say anything else about fucking, or touch Cassidy in any way that isn’t chaste and fraternal and within Cassidy’s ability to handle it.

**7A. Beside, astride her**

Cassidy was hoping that after Peter and Marcos saw how well his plan was going, they’d call the whole thing off. The investigation, the reveal—whatever they say about justice, he knows it's really about revenge, getting Goodman back for what he did to them. Someone once said that the best revenge is living well, and with the way his real estate scam is going, they can all live like kings. They say they don’t want the money, though—they just want Goodman behind bars.

They break their story, and Neptune goes crazy. The ‘Mayor’, the town hero, that nice baseball coach all the 09er parents entrust their sweet little darlings to is a pervert. Cassidy’s surprised that they’re all so surprised—he always thought it was so obvious and everyone was just ignoring it, like everything else, something that can be covered up with cash and made to disappear.

When Dick hears the news, he laughs. “The fag and the freak,” he says, “No wonder he went after them, they were probably lining up for some _private coaching_ ,” and Cassidy feels his stomach clench as he forces himself to grin. He manages to make some excuse, make it to the bathroom before he pukes, make it to third period still wiping spit off his lips.

Now it’s all gonna come down, cops and lawyers and journalists tracking down everyone Goodman ever coached, tracking down Cassidy. He’s a good liar, but maybe not good enough to lie all the time, not when his stomach constantly hurts and his brain feels like he’s taken a handful of amphetamines. He has trouble breathing, panic attacks in the halls, and he tells himself you’re weak, you’re fucking weak as he makes himself smile and wave at people he passes.

He could have stopped all this. He could’ve blown up the bus; he could’ve stopped them from talking.

Veronica Mars keeps giving him concerned looks, but thankfully doesn’t talk to him. He knows what’ll happen eventually—she’ll tell her dad, he’ll interview Cassidy, and boom. His life is over.

Mac asks him why she doesn’t want to fuck her, and it keeps running in his head, _chlamydia, I have chlamydia_ , because he saw on the news that Peter and Marcos were tested and he knows that he must have it too. He doesn’t say that, though. Instead, he dumps her and goes to throw up in a trashcan.

He drives around for a long time before he finally goes home, and when he gets there Dick is waiting for him. “I’ve been thinking,” Dick says.

Cassidy shrugs off his jacket and dumps it onto a chair. “Did it hurt?”

“Shut the fuck up, Beav,” Dick hisses. Cassidy doesn’t think he’s ever heard Dick sound so serious. Dick swallows, and his throat clicks loudly. ”You were in Little League with those two f—with those two, weren’t you?”

Cassidy turns around slowly. Looks at Dick on his bed; bleached out hair, blue eyes, his hands for once empty, not clutching a beer or a joint or a Gameboy. “Yeah,” he says. He sits down on the bed, far away from Dick, not touching him. “Yeah, I was.”

“Oh.” They sit there, not touching, the both of them just staring at Cassidy’s walls. Dick doesn’t say anything else. But he doesn’t leave, either.

**7B. I die inside her**

He’s not going to fool himself into thinking that she liked it. She was unconscious. She lay there on the bed. Dick told him to, so he did.

It wasn’t really about Dick, though. It wasn’t even really about Veronica. She was just there, convenient. Better him than some other asshole who’d probably hurt her. When he was inside her she only moved a few times, her hands curling and uncurling on the bedspread, and smiled like a child dreaming—she didn’t even know what was happening. Afterwards he pulled her dress down over her, went outside and puked on Carrie Bishop’s shoes. He’s not even sure why. He wasn’t drunk, barely had anything at all, but as soon as he covered her pale skin with her white dress he felt his stomach clench and vomit rise in his throat.

At the time he didn’t think it was that big a deal. She’d never know. She still doesn’t know. It isn’t like—he can remember, so that makes it different. And he proved it to himself, that there was nothing wrong with him. That he could fuck a girl. He only had trouble getting it up because she was just lying there. Looking so young.

It wasn’t a big deal, but now, when he puts his hands on Mac he wants to curl back inside himself. His hands look so big on her (pushing up her dress) and he’s afraid he’ll hurt her (she barely even twitched, just smiled in her sleep).

Veronica grins at them in the hall sometimes, sweetly indulgent, and he clutches Mac’s hand in his until she winces and says, “Ease up, Cassidy. They haven’t invented the technology to give me that robotic hand yet,” and he forces himself to smile and lets go.

Mac, she just…she doesn’t get it. She’s just like everyone else. Everything always has to be about sex, with everyone; everything always has to be about bodies and groping and sucking and… He’d asked her out because he thought she wasn’t like that. That she was a nice girl.

It’s not him. There’s nothing wrong with him. He proved that.

Its fine, though. He’s busy: he has Dick and school and his company and he always has one eye on the bus investigation, making sure there’s no one else he has to eliminate, making sure no one’s following the right leads. He doesn’t have time for a girlfriend anyway, he should have realized that before he even got involved with her.

He tells Dick that they broke up, and when Dick smirks, “She wouldn’t let you fuck her, huh?” he doesn’t say anything, just lets Dick make the assumptions that he needs to.

**8A. You were mother nature’s son**

Dick doesn’t ask anything else about him, about Goodman, but he stops making jokes about pitchers and catchers.

Another kid comes forward—not even a kid, fucking Lucky the janitor, who used to buy beer for Dick and Cassidy and tell them stories about blowing up civilian hospitals. Anyone can tell that he’s kind of off his nut, and Cassidy could have predicted that having him come forward would be a bad move. Goodman’s smart, and he sees the situation for what it is—a way for him to win back some small advantage. He’s all over the news talking about how Lucky is “a disturbed young man”, how he’s bitter about being fired from his job as a batboy, how Peter and Marcos were never particularly good at baseball and how they just wanted to see incorporation fail, and isn’t it sad that their plan succeeded?

He doesn’t talk about Cassidy’s emails, but that’s not exactly a surprise. After all, if he admits to being blackmailed, he’d have to admit he’d done something to be blackmailed for.

Incorporation is dead. Cassidy’s about to be a millionaire, on his own merit, not just his father’s. He wishes he could care more.

Mac comes over to his house with cookies. Oatmeal raisin, and he wonders dully if she made them with or without butter. “I talked to Veronica again,” she says in a small voice. She’s trying her damndest to keep a smile on her face.

He takes the cookies from her. Takes a deep breath. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Her smile falls, and it’s actually a relief. It looked like it took a lot of trouble to keep it there. “Okay. We don’t have to talk about it. But we can. If you want to.”

“I don’t.” He tries on his own fake smile. “There’s nothing to talk about.” It sounds weak, even to his own ears.

“Okay,” she says again, nodding. “Lost is on tonight. We can take shots every time there’s wacky island hijinks?”

“Why, Miss Mackenzie, I do believe you’re trying to give me alcohol poisoning,” he says and smiles again, for real this time.

They watch Lost on the couch in the living room, half a foot apart, and every time Goodman’s face appears on the screen, on commercials for the news, she squeezes his hand and hands him another cookie.

**8B. Someone to whom I could relate**

Cassidy wasn’t there for the shooting. He was at In ‘N’ Out with Dick, getting a cheeseburger and a chocolate shake, didn’t know about it until he came back to school and saw cops and news vans all over. “Whoa. Maybe someone finally blew up the science building,” Dick said with a grin. “Terence Cook strikes again!”

He sees the press conference, though. Goodman onscreen, talking about Lucky and Iraq and how he hadn’t known Lucky very well. How he’d been a batboy for the Sharks. Goodman lies well—natural politician, distancing himself while at the same time drawing sympathy for the fact that one of his boys had fucked up so badly, gotten himself killed.

Cassidy didn’t know Lucky that well, either. He bought beer for him and Dick, drank it with them a few times. When Goodman was elected, Lucky had come over with two six-packs of Corona and put away probably a pack by himself. He’d only said one thing about Goodman (“He was a good coach. That’s what everybody said. Real close with all the players. Real close with…everyone.”) but Cassidy had looked at him and knew, knew that Goodman had done it to him too. He’s never really thought about it before, what sort of effect it had on other people. It never had any effect on him, he never even thought about it, never let himself… Peter and Marcos seemed pretty normal, considering, but then they were still thinking about it four years later. They wanted to make themselves into victims. So did Lucky, in a way. Putting it all out there, how fucked up he was, doing everything in public. Just another example of why it’s good to stay quiet, stay behind the scenes. Pull the strings.

The next day at school, everything’s pretty normal. It makes Cassidy sad in a way, that Lucky had so little impact on anything, even after terrorizing the school for a day. Even after he’s dead. Cassidy’s different—what he did affected the school, the town; is still affecting it. Kids still cry in the hallways sometimes over their dead friends, there are still updates on the news every other night about the search for the killer.

Everyone knows what Cassidy did, everybody cares, even if they don’t know he was the one who did it.

**9A. Leave me bleeding on the bed**

They missed prom, but Mac invites Cassidy to Duncan and Logan’s graduation party, and it’s almost the same thing. He books a room for them, and Mac looks at him, worried. “We really don’t have to, you know.”

“No, it's—I want to.” And he does. He really, really does. He hasn’t been questioned yet but Veronica is still making weird faces at him in the halls. Dick barely talks to him, just gets progressively angrier every time he sees Goodman’s face on TV. He’s been better about Mac since then, too, almost pushing Cassidy towards her, like he needs proof that his little brother isn’t a fag. And Mac—Mac has barely touched him since they got back together, drawing back from his kisses as though she’s afraid she’s going to hurt him.

Everyone’s walking on eggshells around him, like he’s damaged. Like he’s broken, and they’re just too polite to pick up the pieces with him watching. Nobody else knows yet, jut Dick and Veronica and Mac, and probably Logan and Duncan now, but fuck—that’s almost everyone, everyone important anyway.

So he wants to. But he can’t.

When he rolls off of Mac, she gives him this look of the saddest, sweetest sympathy. Pity. “Cassidy, it's okay.”

“It's not. It's—” He takes a deep breath. “It's not.”

“No, really, Cassidy. We have the whole night ahead of us, and...” She looks at him, looks away. “If it doesn’t happen, its okay. I’ve been doing some reading, its really common for victims of—“

“I’m not a victim.”

“No—no, I know,” she says quickly. ”I’m just saying, it doesn’t have to happen. Not right now. We can just spend the night together.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Okay. Whatever.”

“Okay,” she says, relieved. “Look, I’m gonna take a shower. Why don’t you order us some room service, and I’ll be out in a bit.”

“Sure.” She kisses him on the cheek and goes into the bathroom, and he gets off the bed. Pulls his clothes on and goes out into the hall, shuts the door behind him.

He’s standing against the wall, just breathing, when he feels a touch on his arm and jumps. When he opens his eyes, Peter is standing in front of him. Just what he needs—a living reminder of the reason his life is falling apart.

“You okay?” Peter asks.

“Yeah. Just, um. Getting some air. What are you doing here?”

Peter shrugs. “Some senior asked me to come, rented this room for us. I didn’t realize I was just here to be his little dancing molestation monkey until about an hour ago, so I kicked him out. Figured I could take care of the minibar by myself. How about you—weren’t you here with Mac earlier?”

Cassidy bites the inside of his cheek. “Yeah,“ he says. “Earlier.”

Peter just stands there, studying him. Finally he asks Cassidy if he wants to come inside, have a drink.

Cassidy really, really wants a drink right now.

**9B. See you right back here tomorrow, for the next round**

He’s not a virgin. He has to remember that. (She wasn’t conscious. He touched me first.) Still, he’s nervous. He pours his drink down his throat and hears Dick in the background: “Feels good to be a man from time to time, does it not?”

It does.

“It's liquid,” Mac says. “It's courage. It's liquid courage!” But she goes up to the room with him, and lies down on the bed. Her skin is so soft, her lips are wet. She curls into him like he’s bigger than he is, like he can protect her. Like she wants him to.

He remembers Veronica’s lips moving in sleep, Goodman touching— Goodman—

He rolls off of her and tries to keep himself from puking.

She understands, of course. Of course she does. She’s so nice about it, acts like it doesn’t even matter, and he’d be grateful if he didn’t resent her so much for it. For making him do it in the first place. For making a thing out of it, putting so much pressure on him that it’s like not thinking about the pink elephant—you can’t.

She says something and then goes to take a shower. He’s thinking about leaving, just putting his clothes on and getting out of there, when her cell phone beeps.

GET AWAY FROM BEAVER. NOW. HE’S A KILLER. I’M IN THE LOBBY.

Cassidy’s so incredibly glad that he had the forethought to bring a gun with him. Dad never took him to the range, but Cassidy still learned how to shoot. On his own. Self-made man, that’s what Dad always called himself, and that’s what Cassidy is, too. 

A self-made man.

**10A. Can’t you see these skies are breaking**

They go into Peter’s room and Peter pours him a vodka tonic. “I lied about the minibar,” he says with a grin. “But he bought booze, and I wouldn’t let him take it with him when I kicked him out. I figure its asshole tax.” They sit in silence for a while; Cassidy doesn’t feel especially obligated to fill it. Peter clears his throat nervously. “Um. How’s your company doing?”

“Great,” he says. “Eight million and change.”

Peter’s eyes widen, and Cassidy bets he’s regretting turning down the money now. “Holy shit. You really are smart.”

“What, you thought I was just a pretty face?” Cassidy says, rolling his eyes. “How about you, how’s—how’s it going?”

Peter raises his eyebrows. “You know how it’s going. Investigation, Woody saying shit about us on the news. It’s okay, though. We’ll get him. Really, though, you should--”

“I’m not going to,” Cassidy says wearily. He’s so tired of this shit, has been for so long. He just wants to be over, he doesn’t want to ever have to think about it again.

“Look, its not even—it's not even about the trial. You need to admit what he did to you. What he did to us.”

“I know what he did to me,” Cassidy says. He’s clenching his fist around his glass, trying to breathe through this. “I know what he did. I just—I don’t see how it makes any difference. It happened. It's over. And I just don’t see why it’s supposed to fucking haunt my life. It doesn’t matter.”

“It fucking well does, Cassidy. If it doesn’t matter, why the hell aren’t you with Mac right now?” Cassidy closes his eyes, feels the bed shift as Peter sits down next to him, puts his arm around him. He whispers in Cassidy’s ear, “Look, it's okay, Cassidy, it's okay.” 

He is so fucking sick of people telling him it's okay. It's not. It's not.

He lets himself lean into Peter, just a little, and hears Peter draw in a breath. “I can’t—” Cassidy says. “I can’t even stand to touch my own girlfriend.”

He feels Peter’s lips on the side of his face, hears Peter say, “It's okay, Cassidy. I know, I know you. It's not always like it was with him. It's okay to like it,” and then Peter kisses him, and they’re kissing, and it's good.

Peter puts his arm around Cassidy, still murmuring, “It's okay to like it, it's okay,” one hand resting on the back of Cassidy’s neck and the other on his thigh, slowly going higher. Peter’s hand curves around Cassidy’s dick through his pants, and for one moment it's so, so good, to be touched like this. 

But then he remembers, remembers the last time someone touched him—the last time someone—

And then, hands moving almost without his permission, he’s bringing the heavy tumbler in his hand down on Peter’s head. Peter bites Cassidy’s lip and he tastes blood, and then Peter’s falling back and there’s blood on his head, his face.

“What—what, fuck, Cassidy,” he says, and his words are slurred, like he bit his tongue.

“I don’t,” Cassidy says. “I don’t. I don’t like it.” He’s babbling and he knows it, but he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he doesn’t like this, not having a plan. He can’t turn back from this, he can’t fix this. Can’t make it not have happened, and Peter will tell. Tell someone.

He should’ve just crashed the bus. Then none of this would have happened—Mac and Dick and everyone else knowing what happened to him, and this, now, Peter’s blood on his hands.

Peter’s on the floor and he’s trying to get up, so Cassidy hits him over and over again, until the glass breaks, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

**10B. Cause I’m outta the womb and into the void**

He should have known it would come down to this. Veronica fucking Mars, charging in like a hero without thinking about the consequences. It would have been so much better for everyone if she’d been on the bus. Or maybe its him, maybe this is his fault. He shouldn’t have written her name on Curly’s hand. He should have known that would make her get involved, it was stupid and cocky. A stupid risk.

He thinks about ways to play this, and then realizes that there aren’t really any options. He can’t show weakness, not now. Not—he doesn’t want to do this. He hates her so fucking much for making him do this, because this isn’t want he wants. He likes Veronica, he really does. He just wishes she wasn't so fucking smart. 

He can’t feel sorry for her. He can’t feel sorry for anyone, because then he’ll stop, give up. He has to let his anger feed him, get him through this until he can go back downstairs with Mac, apologize. He can hold her when the cops come to give her the news about Veronica, tell her it’ll be okay.

She meets him on the roof. Proof: she isn’t as smart as she thinks she is, otherwise she’d never have gone up here alone. He can still take care of this. He can still make it go away.

She lays it out for him, every bit of the plan, step by step. She’s got everything down, and he hadn’t thought he’d been so obvious, left so many trails leading back to him, but she’s Veronica fucking Mars, after all. Teen detective, heroine of the school. Of course she figured it out.

He’s not sure how convincing all this would be to a jury—after all, her credibility’s shot with the courts. Aaron Echolls got off, and chances are Cassidy would too. But it’s not a risk that he can take. Even the implication…and they would know. They would know what Goodman did, if this got out. Mac would know. She’s friends with Veronica; she would believe her. And Mac would never talk to him again if she knew that he’d touched Veronica, that he’d been inside her and felt her around him like he hasn’t yet with Mac.

He has to do this. He has to finish it.

The explosion is huge. A giant ball of fire in the sky, and Goodman’s gone. He’s finally gone. He can’t tell anyone what he did to Cassidy, and he can’t do it ever again. Its probably stupid to do this, to eliminate the last likely suspect for the bus crash, but he hates the idea of Goodman getting the credit for what Cassidy’s done.

Veronica is sobbing beside him, and in the back of his mind he wonders what its like, to have a father who makes you care like that. He wants to tell her it’ll be okay, that if she just jumps it‘ll all be okay and nothing will ever, ever hurt her again. He doesn’t want her to hurt. He wants this to be over for her, for the both of them. Instead he tasers her, and she shrieks under his hand, curling up into a ball. She’s so tiny. He knows what its like to be small like that, so easy to hurt.

He hurts her anyway.

He knows its over when he sees Logan. This is it, the end. There are still ways he could spin this—lover’s quarrel, suicide pact, and of course Aaron still has a grudge against them both, but really, its spinning out of his control and he knows it. When Veronica turns the gun on him, its just confirmation, and he almost hopes that she’ll shoot him. Get it over with. Go out like a man.

She almost shoots him; he can see her finger itching to pull the trigger. Logan convinces her not to. She’s not a killer, he says.

Cassidy is.

That’s not why he climbs up on the edge, though. He’ll own up to it—he killed people. He raped Veronica. He left Mac wet and alone in their hotel room with no idea where he is. All of that, that’s his. He owns it. He’s up here on the ledge because he knows what they’ll do. They’ll twist it; they’ll make it theirs, their tragedy instead of his triumph. They’ll make him into the weak little kid who just wanted to be strong, into the damaged little victim who went on a spree because he was…because he was _raped_ by his fucking baseball coach. They’ll make it all about that, about this one thing that happened in Cassidy’s life, and it's not—it’s not about that. It's not.

He hears Logan behind him, calling out to him, “Beaver, don’t!”

“My name,” he says, “is Cassidy.” It’s starting already. They’re twisting it, twisting him. It’ll happen after he’s gone, but at least he won’t be around to see it.

“Cassidy, don’t.”

“Why not?” He looks at Logan, honestly curious. Logan’s mouth works, opening and saying nothing, because Logan knows. Sometimes there’s no reason not to. Now, especially.

Veronica is just looking at him, eyes still glazed with tears, but hard and steady and fixed on him. He knows that, for Veronica, there will never be a reason to jump.

He wishes, just for a second, that he could be like her. But he’s not.

He steps backwards and just lets himself fall.

**11A. I was alone, staring over the ledge**

He sits on the bed, trying to calm his breathing and checking out his exits, already planning a way to get out of this mess.

**11B. Trying my best not to forget**

He’s out.

**Author's Note:**

> All lyrics are from the album Meds by Placebo: Summary. Meds, 1. Space Monkey, 2. Follow The Cops Back Home, 3. Drag, 4. Post-Blue, 5. Blind, 6. Infra-Red, 7. Space Monkey, 8. Song To Say Goodbye, 9. Pierrot the Clown, 10. I Am One, 11. Meds.


End file.
